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Red-Blue line connector project funded, but not state's priority

By Andy Metzger, State House News Service

Updated:
09/24/2012 11:26:48 AM EDT

BOSTON -- Federal officials have asked the state to include in its funding plan a design for a downtown link between two major subway lines, and the state has complied despite having no plans to actually carry out the project.

The project would extend the Blue Line to the Charles-MGH Red Line station, and completion of the design is part of the state implementation plan, which Transportation Secretary Richard Davey said was necessary for Big Dig permits.

But the state is seeking approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Protection Agency to now remove that requirement from the state implementation plan, according to Massachusetts Department of Transportation spokeswoman Cyndi Roy.

Rafael Mares, staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, said that the downtown project linking the Blue Line from Government Center to Charles-MGH would unburden the whole transportation system, and ease the commute for people riding into town from East Boston and farther north.

"There is a lot of congestion in that part that's only going to get worse over time," said Mares. He said, "It also happens to connect job centers with lower income communities."

The Conservation Law Foundation has sued the state over Clean Air Act compliance, and Mares said the mandate for the connector was "indirectly" connected to a lawsuit settlement.

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Mares said the state had originally agreed to actually build the connector but had scaled back the agreement so that it would only have to complete designs for the project.

But Davey said that project and the millions of dollars it would cost to merely design it are not a top state priority. Davey said the designs would not reduce greenhouse gases.

"Obviously designing something doesn't accomplish that. We're not reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We're not reducing the number of vehicle-miles traveled, and given the transportation finance challenges we have, we thought the tens of millions of dollars we would have to spend in order to design it are better spent in other places," said Davey, continuing, "Our priorities continue to be, in terms of expansion, South Coast Rail and the Green Line Extension."

The state will need to receive DEP and EPA approval before scuttling the project.

A federal official said Massachusetts officials had been informed that their four-year state transportation improvement plan would need to include the transit project. Both the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration would need to sign off on the state transportation improvement plan, which prioritizes the projects to receive federal funding, according to the official, and in early September, the EPA wrote to the FHA, flagging the lack of funding for the project design.

"To make a positive conformity determination for both the eastern (Massachusetts) and the Boston carbon monoxide maintenance area, EPA believes that funding for the current (state implementation plan) commitment to design the Red Line/Blue Line Connector must be restored ... or the state implementation process to remove this commitment must be completed," the EPA wrote.

The EPA also noted that the design plans for the connector, the Fairmount Line and commuter rail parking facilities were supposed to be completed by Dec. 31, 2011. State officials have estimated the Green Line project would not be completed before 2018.

While the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization added the $49 million Blue Line project designs back to the state's improvement plan in a vote on Thursday, the state is still undergoing the process to remove the requirement that the project be built, according to Roy. The DEP's public comment period lasts until Sept. 24.

"In the meantime we had to put $49 million onto the (state transportation improvement plan) for the next four years," Roy told the News Service. She said, "We don't believe we'll have to fund the project."

Transit activists are hoping to change that.

The state "has no intention of doing it unless DEP or EPA says it has to," said Mares, adding, "We're intending to change their mind on that."

Mares said having a design plan for the project would make it shovel-ready and available to receive funding for construction. He said the project would benefit all commuters by making transit more efficient.

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